1919–1939: Early life Phylis Lee Isley was born in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, on March 2, 1919, the daughter of Flora Mae (née Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley. Her father was originally from
Georgia, and her mother was a native of
Sacramento, California. She was an only child, and she was raised Catholic. Her parents, both aspiring stage actors, toured the Midwest in a traveling
tent show that they owned and operated. Jones accompanied them, performing on occasion as part of the Isley Stock Company. (left) and
John Wayne (right) in
New Frontier (1939) In 1925, Isley enrolled at Edgemere Public School in
Oklahoma City, then attended
Monte Cassino, a Catholic girls school and junior college in Tulsa. After graduating, she enrolled as a drama major at
Northwestern University in Illinois, where she was a member of
Kappa Alpha Theta sorority before transferring to the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in September 1937. It was there that she met and fell in love with fellow acting student
Robert Walker, a native of
Ogden, Utah, and left school. They married on January 2, 1939. By the 1930s her father, Phil Isley, ran a chain of movie theaters in Texas, and was influential in her early dramatic career. Mr. and Mrs. Walker returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio program arranged by her father and then moved to Hollywood. It is quite possible that he arranged for his daughter's screen contract with the small independent studio
Republic Pictures. Under her maiden name of Phylis Isley, she played ingenues in a
Three Mesquiteers western
New Frontier, filmed in the summer of 1939 for
Republic Pictures. Her second project was the serial ''
Dick Tracy's G-Men'' (1939), also for Republic. The 20-year-old hopeful made little impression and Republic did not extend her contract. After failing a screen test for
Paramount Pictures, she became disenchanted with Hollywood and returned to New York City.
1940–1948: Career beginnings Shortly after her marriage, she gave birth to two sons:
Robert Walker Jr. (1940–2019), and Michael Walker (1941–2007). While Walker found steady work in radio programs, Isley worked part-time modeling hats for the
Powers Agency, and posing for ''Harper's Bazaar'' while looking for acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead role in
Rose Franken's hit play
Claudia in the summer of 1941, she presented herself to
David O. Selznick's New York office but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. However, Selznick had overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back. Following an interview, she was signed to a seven-year contract. '' (1943) She was carefully groomed for stardom and given a new name: Jennifer Jones. Director
Henry King was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for
The Song of Bernadette (1943), and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. In
1944, on her 25th birthday, she won the
Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Bernadette, her third screen role. Simultaneously to her rise in prominence for
The Song of Bernadette, Jones began an affair with producer
Selznick. She separated from Walker in November 1943, co-starred with him in
Since You Went Away (1944), and formally divorced him in June 1945. For her performance in
Since You Went Away, she was nominated for her second Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actress. She earned a third successive Academy Award nomination for her performance with
Joseph Cotten in
Love Letters (1945). Jones's saintly image from her first starring role was starkly contrasted three years later when she was cast as a biracial woman in
Selznick's controversial
Duel in the Sun (1946), in which she portrayed a mixed-race indigenous (
mestiza) orphan in Texas who falls in love with a white man (
Gregory Peck). Also in 1946, she starred as the title character in
Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy
Cluny Brown as a working-class English woman who falls in love just before World War II. She next appeared in the fantasy film
Portrait of Jennie (1948), again costarring with Cotten. The film was based on the
novella of the same name by
Robert Nathan. However, it was a commercial failure, grossing only $1.5 million against a $4 million budget.
1949–1964: Marriage to Selznick in 1957 Jones married
Selznick at sea on July 13, 1949, en route to Europe after a five-year relationship. Over the following two decades, she appeared in numerous films that he produced, and they established a working relationship. In 1949, Jones starred opposite
John Garfield in
John Huston's adventure film
We Were Strangers.
Bosley Crowther of
The New York Times felt that Jones's performance was lacking, noting: "There is neither understanding nor passion in the stiff, frigid creature she achieves." She was subsequently cast as the title character of
Vincente Minnelli's
Madame Bovary (1949), a role originally intended for
Lana Turner that Turner declined.
Variety deemed the film "interesting to watch, but hard to feel," although it noted that "Jones answers to every demand of direction and script." In 1950, Jones starred in the
Powell and Pressburger-directed fantasy
Gone to Earth as a superstitious gypsy woman in the English countryside. Jones next starred in
William Wyler's drama
Carrie (1952) with
Laurence Olivier. Crowther criticized her performance, writing: "Mr. Olivier gives the film its closest contact with the book, while Miss Jones' soft, seraphic portrait of Carrie takes it furthest away." Also in 1952, she costarred with
Charlton Heston in
Ruby Gentry, playing a
femme fatale in rural North Carolina who becomes embroiled in a murder conspiracy after marrying a local man. The role was previously offered to
Joan Fontaine, who felt that she was "unsuited to play backwoods." In its review,
Variety deemed the film a "sordid drama [with] neither Jennifer Jones nor Charlton Heston gaining any sympathy in their characters." in
Terminal Station (1953) In 1953, Jones was cast opposite
Montgomery Clift in Italian director
Vittorio De Sica's
Terminal Station (), a drama set in Rome about a romance between an American woman and an Italian man. The film, produced by Selznick, had a troubled production history, and
Selznick and De Sica clashed over the screenplay and tone of the film. Clift sided with De Sica and reportedly called Selznick "an interfering fuck-face" on set. Aside from the tensions between cast and crew, Jones was mourning the recent death of her first husband Robert Walker, and also missed her two sons, who were staying in Switzerland during production.
Terminal Station was screened at the
1953 Cannes Film Festival and was released in a heavily truncated form in the United States with the title
Indiscretion of an American Wife. Also in 1953, Jones teamed again with director John Huston to star in his film
Beat the Devil (1953), an adventure comedy costarring
Humphrey Bogart. The film was a box-office flop and was critically panned upon release, and Bogart distanced himself from it. However, it was reevaluated in later years by critics such as
Roger Ebert, who included it in his list of "Great Movies" and cited it as the first "
camp" film. In August 1954, Jones gave birth to her third child, daughter Mary Jennifer Selznick. Jones was cast as Chinese-born doctor
Han Suyin in the drama
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), a role that brought her fifth Academy Award nomination. Crowther lauded her performance as "... lovely and intense. Her dark beauty reflects sunshine and sadness." Next, she starred as a schoolteacher in
Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955), followed by a lead role in
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a drama about a World War II veteran. '' (1956) In 1957, she starred as the poet
Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the historical drama
The Barretts of Wimpole Street, based on the 1930
play by
Rudolf Besier. She next played the lead role in the
Ernest Hemingway adaptation
A Farewell to Arms (1957). The film received mixed reviews, with
Variety noting that "the relationship between Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones never takes on real dimensions." Jones's next project came five years later with the
F. Scott Fitzgerald adaptation
Tender Is the Night (1962).
1965–2009: Later life and activities Selznick died at age 63 on June 22, 1965, and after his death, Jones semiretired from acting. Her first role in four years was a lead part in the British drama
The Idol (1966) as the mother of an adult son in
Swinging Sixties London who has an affair with his best friend. In 1966, Jones made a rare theatrical appearance in the revival of Clifford Odets'
The Country Girl, costarring
Rip Torn, at New York's City Center. On November 9, 1967, the same day on which her close friend
Charles Bickford died of a blood infection, Jones attempted suicide. Informing her physician of her intention to jump from a cliff overlooking Malibu Beach, she swallowed barbiturates before walking to the base of the cliff, where she was found unconscious amidst the rocky surf. According to biographer Paul Green, it was news of Bickford's death that triggered Jones's suicide attempt. She was hospitalized in a coma from the incident. She returned to film with
Angel, Angel, Down We Go in 1969, about a teenage girl who uses her association with a
rock band to manipulate her family. after their marriage, May 1971 On May 29, 1971, Jones married her third husband
Norton Simon, a multimillionaire industrialist, art collector and philanthropist from Portland, Oregon. The wedding took place aboard a tugboat five miles off the English coast and was conducted by
Unitarian minister Eirion Phillips. Years before, Simon had attempted to buy the portrait of Jones that was used in the film
Portrait of Jennie. Simon later met Jones at a party hosted by fellow industrialist and art collector
Walter Annenberg. Jones's last film appearance came in the disaster film
The Towering Inferno (1974). Her performance as a doomed resident in the eponymous skyscraper earned her a
Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Early scenes in the film showed paintings lent to the production by the art gallery of Jones's husband Simon. On May 11, 1976, Jones's 21-year-old daughter, Mary, a student at
Occidental College, died by suicide by jumping from the roof of a 22-floor apartment hotel in downtown Los Angeles. This led to Jones's interest in mental health issues. In 1979, with husband Simon (whose son Robert died by suicide in 1969), she founded the Jennifer Jones Simon Foundation for Mental Health and Education, which she ran until 2003. One of Jones's primary goals with the foundation was to destigmatize mental illness. In 1980, Jones said: "I cringe when I admit I've been suicidal, had mental problems, but why should I? I hope we can reeducate the world to see there's no more need for stigma in mental illness than there is for cancer." She also divulged that she had been a psychotherapy patient since age 24. In 1996, she began working with architect
Frank Gehry and landscape designer Nancy Goslee Power to renovate the museum and gardens. She remained active as the director of the museum until 2003, when she was awarded emerita status. == Personal life ==